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Andrei Kirlenko and CSKA Moscow: Week of 10/17

This week (or next week, depending on which way Sunday swings for you), is the only week through the rest of the year that CSKA has three games on the schedule. For the rest of the calendar year, it’s two games per week: one Euroleague game, and one VTB or PBL game.

Euroleague opened this week on Monday with CSKA vs. Zalgiris, and AK has been named Euroleague MVP for Week 1. This has little to no meaning as it’s based on one game. However, AK did garner the highest efficiency rating* among all Euroleague players in the week. On a side note, his 15 rebounds in the game were the most for a CSKA player since 2004.

CSKA next played Czech team Nymburk at home on Thursday. CSKA won 80-69. The coach opted to rest three players (two starters), including AK. Midway through the game, one of AK’s kids showed up. They have the same exact hair.

That’s all I got on that one.

On Sunday, CSKA played Lokomotiv Kuban and AK was back in the starting lineup. The game featured literally half (6-12) of the Russian national team. It was a little back-and-forth in the early going, but CSKA held Lokomotiv to 11 points in the 3rd and it wasn’t close after that.

From the VTB League’s recap (Google translated):

And when the announcer came to the name “Kirilenko” Hall and does erupted minute ovation.* Still, the threat of complete lockout still hangs over Europe Basketball dark cloud. That means another chance to see in action “live” AK-47 and can not be presented. Kirilenko began to dominate on both sides of the site from the very first seconds. (VTB)

and to think that if the lockout ends, they’re going to cram games into the schedule so hard that 4 games in 5 nights and 5 games in 7 nights would probably be the norm…making for a truncated season of extremely poor quality basketball.